It is just a heartbreaking story. Today, Nuggets all-star Carmelo Anthony was in the Baltimore area for the funeral of his 38-year-old sister, Michelle, who died last week from what the Nuggets called a “pre-existing condition.” The Baltimore Sun posted a piece about the funeral.

The article said that Melo did not speak at the service, which was attended by a couple hundred mourners. According to the piece:

Michelle Anthony was born Aug. 18, 1972, in Brooklyn, N.Y., where she graduated from John Jay High School, and moved to Baltimore in 1992, according to an obituary distributed at the service. It also noted “her luminous smile, wild sense of humor and her love for music, particularly the sounds of Mary J. Blige.”

Nuggets coach George Karl previously said it’s possible that Anthony could play Tuesday at Pepsi Center against Portland. Denver then plays Wednesday at Minnesota. Anthony leads his team with 24 points per game.

SAN ANTONIO – If not for this morning’s startling/saddening news of a death in Nuggets forward Carmelo Anthony, which will keep him off the court tonight against San Antonio, the team would be staring at its first full available roster of the season.

As it stands, that should happen soon.

But tonight, as Anthony tends to much more important family business, the Nuggets look forward to the returns of big men Kenyon Martin and Chris Andersen, and guard Chauncey Billups. All three were out with injuries – for Martin, tonight will be his season debut – and all are expected to give the team a nice boost.

“I’d be surprised if anyone came in (tonight) and said they were sore,” Nuggets coach George Karl said. “I think they are all going to be ready to play.”

CHARLOTTE – Nine cities and nine pounds into this thing, I have stumbled upon a chi-changing cheeseburger. It’s served at a local spot in Charlotte that I came across – and now, I feel it’s my life’s calling to extol the virtues of this burger joint, spreading this gift like Prometheus did fire.
The place is called McDonald’s. It seemed to be a popular lunch spot for Charlotte locals – in fact, when I told the lady I’d never been to McDonald’s, the gent behind me in line began laughing out loud (I didn’t feel like explaining to him that, after all, I only make it to Charlotte once a year).

BOSTON — In the aftermath, following my 15 rounds with the “Norm Burger” — the one-pound monstrosity served at Cheers – I regaled some Celtics writers with tales of this feud, when one scribe deadpanned: “In the morning, you’re gonna look like Kirstie Alley.”

Indeed, this was the biggest burger I’d ever attempted to eat, and the once sultry Alley now looks like she ate George Wendt.

But before we get into the blow-by-blow about my lunch/dinner/breakfast-the-next-day, may I take a moment to declare that the TV’s Cheers is one of the greatest sitcoms of all time — along with Seinfeld, 30 Rock, The Dick Van Dyke Show, All In The Family, The Office (with Michael Scott) and The Office (with David Brent).

* Carmelo Anthony admitted that he’s still under-the-weather due to that cold. You can see it in his body language. And you can see it in his shooting, which is cold, as well.

* The Bobcats have two good players – and Denver allowed both to have two good games. Stephen Jackson stuffed the stat sheet for the home team, scoring 23 points with nine rebounds and seven assists, playing 40 minutes for the Bobcats. Gerald Wallace played 41 and he had 20, nine and five.

* Chauncey is killing it from the foul line. He was 11-for-12 tonight and he hasn’t missed more than one a game since returning from that wrist injury late last month.

* At the half, J.R. Smith had two rebounds in 15 minutes, and the guard said that in the locker room, “George pretty much begged the smalls to make sure we get in there and help our bigs, so I just took it upon myself to get as many rebounds as I could.” Smith finished with a game-high 10 rebounds and the Nuggets out-rebounded the Bucks in the second half, 25-15.

* The Nuggets now have five wins this season when trailing at halftime – 5-3 – and are 3-0 at home when trailing at halftime.

* Carmelo Anthony’s stats are taking a beating this week. First he only played three minutes on Sunday due to his illness, and then he was ejected in the third quarter against Milwaukee, after scoring 14 points. And so, his average is now 23.1 points per game. Also, Melo said he saw Troy Tulowitzki last night at a restaurant at the Four Seasons. Tulo was celebrating his new contract with the Rockies. Melo joked, “I should have sent my bill to him.”

Carmelo Anthony, still reeling from a bout with the flu, practiced in a long sleeve hoodie this afternoon trying to keep warm in preparation for the Nuggets’ game Wednesday night against Milwaukee.

“I still feel weak,” Anthony said afterward. “I have no energy. I tried to come out here today just to try to break a sweat, get loose a little bit. But I’m still trying to find my energy.”

Still, Anthony said he’ll try to play in the upcoming game against the Bucks.

“I’m going to try and see how it goes,” Anthony said. “I’ll wake up tomorrow, see how I feel before the game and see what happens. It ain’t no 24-hour virus, I’ll tell you that. I’ve been trying to get as much rest, eat the proper foods. I try not to take too many medicines. No meds. I’m not a big medicine guy.”

Anthony may or may not take an IV prior to the contest. That course of action did not help him much prior to Sunday night’s game.

“I took two IV’s before the game the other day but I don’t think that seemed to work at all,” Anthony said. “I don’t know. I’m going to keep fighting, try to get through it.”

SAN FRANCISCO – I didn’t grow a beard to be as cool as Brian Wilson, just like I didn’t once frost my tips to be as cool as *NSYNC – it just worked out that way.

But unlike San Francisco’s Wilson in the Fall Classic, my beard was not feared in my summertime wiffleball games – one time, Nate Kreckman’s homer off me traveled so far, it had to stop for gas (He was like Paste on Bases Loaded).

As for the Giants’ closer, Wilson is one of the loonier athletes on the planet (though possibly not from said planet):

After each Nuggets game, Benjamin Hochman will breakdown three hot topics of the night

* The Suns were playing their eighth game in 13 days – and it showed. “You can’t win a game when you don’t guard anybody,” Phoenix coach Alvin Gentry said. “You got to guard somebody. One person. Even if we guard George Karl.” The last time Denver scored 130 or more was the 135 against Golden State on Dec. 1, 2009.

* How about the bench! (how about it?) Yes, these stats are skewed because the ill Carmelo Anthony only scored three points, but the bench had 70 points, the most scored by the bench since March 16, 2008 against Seattle (74).

* Denver’s 28 assists was a season-high – and the Nuggets are 9-2 when tallying 20-plus assists. Chauncey Billups, back from the wrist injury, had eight assists and just one turnover.

PORTLAND — Here, where it rains like Lil’ Wayne at a strip club, my cab driver explained to me that Portland has been “infiltrated” with hipsters, these folks who painstaking prepare their outfits to come across as if they don’t care whatsoever about their appearance. As for school, they are too cool.

But the image in my mind is some regular-sized dude trying to squeeze into a pair of skinny jeans, pulling them up his thighs a centimeter at a time, his leg-cuffed body finally losing balance and falling hard to the floor. After 45 minutes, he finally gets the things up to his waist — and then, in a moment of vulnerability, he deceitfully clicks onto levi.com and gazes at the relaxed fits, if only to torture himself.

Now, while in Portland, I ate two huge burgers – one at a local staple called Stanich’s, the other a surprise dinner from The Gilt Club at the Nuggets game, courtesy of Trail Blazers PR man (and fellow burger aficionado) Collin Romer. I’ll tell you — even if I were a hipster, there would be no way I could fit into those jeans after my trip to Portland. Though, come to think of it, perhaps I could become the first stocky hipster. I’d be a pioneer! I could break barriers, uniting skinnies in skinny jeans with fatties who, deep down, just want to also wear ironic T-shirts and quote obscure poets.

Other comedian: “I heard you went down to somebody’s office and heckled them?”

Seinfeld: “Well, it’s about time one of us drew a line in the sand.”

Other comedian: “Jerry, you’re like Rosa Parks. You opened the door for all of us. I can’t wait till the next time someone heckles me.”

That’s how the song was hand-typed on the jukebox label over at Fat Harry’s, back in my golory days.

There is something quintessentially comforting about a neighborhood bar, with its perfect imperfections, and for five-plus years, I was Cliff Clavin at Fat Harry’s Bar in Uptown New Orleans, my home away from home, 2002-07.

(Incidentally, if they were to make a Cheers-like sitcom about this friendly neighborhood spot, I surely would have the great pleasure of being portrayed on the small screen by that Frodo guy).

Sometimes, Bill Walton confuses himself with Dr. James Naismith. You know, the guy with the funny glasses and a peach basket who invented basketball.

Usually, I wish Walton would keep his mouth closed. He’s incredibly negative. But Walton was on to something with his honest assessment of the Nuggets’ Carmelo Anthony.

Last week, appearing with Michael Kay on ESPN Radio 1050 in New York, Walton was asked if Melo’s playing style would fit well with the Knicks’ Amar’e Stoudemire. Walton not only said no, he went out of his way to take Anthony down a notch or two.

“Carmelo, to me, does not have what it takes to be the great player,” Walton said. “He puts up nice numbers. Makes a great salary. Media and publicity and all like him. But does he win the games? Does he make the squad better? Does he pull guys together? It hasn’t happened in Denver at all. I’m a big Amar’e Stoudemire fan. I will hold my tongue on Carmelo.”

Nobody likes it hear a local star get ripped by somebody like Walton. But really, if we’re being honest, Melo simply is not in the same class as Kobe, LeBron or even Oklahoma City’s Kevin Durant.

So you’ve been over the reasons why Carmelo Anthony should or should not stay with the Nuggets and you’re mad/sad/frustrated/perplexed. Or not. But in any event you’ve been thinking about it.

And with all of the rumors and proposed deals and jockeying behind the scenes going on, you’re also wondering, if the team is ultimately going to move him anyway why won’t they just do it now?

We know the Nuggets are searching and negotiating the best deal for them, while still trying to satisfy Anthony as well. We also know that there is (was?) a belief in the organization that if they could just get Anthony to the regular season – which, for the Nuggets starts on Oct. 27 – and win a bunch of games, the superstar would see Denver really is the place for him and his family.

But here’s where it also benefits the Nuggets to drag their feet a bit and have Carmelo start the season in powder blue.

Nuggets coach George Karl arrived at the Sept. 27 media day unsure what his roster would look like on the Oct. 27 opening night. But Karl has said over and over that the camp has gone well, despite the Carmelo Anthony trade rumors. After Wednesday’s practice, he was asked – what if the trade happens now or during the season.

“Now we’re in a position that if a trade does happen, it makes our situation somewhat difficult,” Karl said. “A perfect scenario for coaches is to have a couple weeks to work through strategies and philosophies with guys you get. Now you have to do it in the games and in the situation of a season. Don’t get me wrong – I came to Denver in the middle of the season. I was thankful that (coach Jeff) Bzdelik had a lot of my stuff in his system, so it was a lot easier. But with a player, I got to figure them out, they got to figure us out, they got to figure each other out. There’s a lot of figuring out going on if a trade happens.”

Carmelo Anthony laughs it up on the bench against OKC on Tuesday. (John Leyba, The Denver Post)

If Carmelo Anthony ends up with the New York Knicks, he should bend over backward to thank a franchise that not only reluctantly let their superstar go, but waited and fulfilled his every wish to do so.

That will have been a big-time classy move by the Nuggets, my friends.

Anthony could be in New Jersey right this minute. And while that would be fine with him, particularly since the team has plans to move to Brooklyn in the near future, it just wouldn’t be the Knicks. Anthony loves playing in The Garden. He says it every time he goes to New York for a game, and he’ll say it again in December, if he’s still a Nugget by then.

One of the most overblown aspects of this entire story has been the willingness of many to interpret Anthony’s words of fondness for playing in The Garden into meaning he wanted to play for the Knicks. But he does.

LOS ANGELES — My apologies to any Sepulveda Boulevard drivers who, upon my manic U-turn toward the In-N-Out Burger, nearly crashed into my rented white Toyota Corolla. Once I spotted the In-N-Out, I was all in.

Yes, most of the burger joints during my National Burger Adventure won’t be fast food, but In-N-Out ain’t Hardees; on the contrary, we’re dealing with an L.A. staple here, like Staples Center or stapled faces of aging actresses. Heck, this place was even immortalized in an immortal movie, “The Big Lebowski:”

I caught up on the phone with Cowherd and Beadle, the stars of a pretty awesome sports show called “SportsNation.” Both follow the NBA closely and both have playful personalities, so I peppered them with questions about Melo, Birdman’s neck tattoo, Kobe and “Miami Thrice” (Worst. Nickname. Ever.)

The reason why these two are lumped together is because they are opening eyes through similar circumstances. Both worked hard to get into better condition over the summer through rigorous training programs and it has been more than evident in the ability of each to play harder for longer periods of time.

For Afflalo, this is key because he’s asked much of the time to clamp down the opposition’s best perimeter player on defense and then be effective on offense as well when the ball swings his way. After last season, Afflalo admitted he needed to be in better shape to do that. Check.

For Smith, he has brought a great attitude to training camp, and additional summer work on mid-range shooting has returned positive early dividends. Smith is arguably the most impressive player in the first week of training camp. If he can keep up the high level of play and upbeat attitude, the Nuggets may be looking at a player ready to return to the form that nearly earned him the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year award in 2009.

Carmelo Anthony met with the media today and said some interesting stuff. No, he didn’t admit that he wants to be traded to a bigger market. But look, we all know that Masai Ujiri and the Denver front office has publicly said they hoped that Melo, somehow, would agree to stay. Today, Melo said: “I met with Masai right before media day. He said what he had to say, I had what I had to say, we discussed a lot of things out there on the table.”

So then I asked: “Were the things he had to say different than the things you had to say?

Melo: “Yes. Yes.”

Melo goes on to talk about La La Vazquez, dealing with the pressure of New Jersey trade talks and some other stuff. Here are his answers:

Was there part of you wish Nuggets did more in the offseason?: I mean, of course. Everybody wants to get better in anything you do, any profession in life, you want to get better. Us signing Al (Harrington) was a good addition to the team. Are we looking for something else? That’s something the front office has got to sit down and think about.

Chris Dempsey arrived at The Denver Post in Dec. 2003 after seven years at the Boulder Daily Camera, where he primarily covered the University of Colorado football and men's basketball teams. A University of Colorado-Boulder alumnus, Dempsey covers the Nuggets and also chips in on college sports.